Did your morning cup of tea get cheaper in 2018? Following an uncertainty in global economic conditions and controlled demand pressure for the commodities, 2018 saw a global price dip in most of the daily use items belonging to groups such as food and beverages, a recent report by CARE ratings claimed.
While the grains prices saw a rise of 8.6% over the period from December 2017 to December 2018, the overall food price showed a considerable decline. Food saw an aggregate decline by 2.4% and beverage by 3.5%. Also, edible oils and meals got cheaper by 10.2% with Coconut oil getting hit the worst at 45.1%. Other oils include Groundnut oil- 5%, Sunflower oil- 12.2%, Soybean oil- 16.1%, palm oil by 21.2% and Palm kernel oil by 43.4%.
Fruits like oranges grew cheaper by 20% while meat, cocoa and chicken saw a decline ranging from 22- 27%. Other food items saw a decrease of 1.7%.
Also, daily beverages like coffee robusta and tea got cheaper by 11.4 and 15.8% respectively. It is to be noted that India exports coffee to over 45 countries and is the 4th largest tea exporter in the world with $591.2 million tea exports.
India is the major sugar supplier across the globe, contributing around 11.8 million metric tonnes to the world sugar stocks estimated at 49.2 million metric tonnes, World Bank’s Commodity Markets Outlook October 2018 Report said. The hit in global sugar prices is a result of surplus stock and might affect India’s sugar manufacturers a lowering down of MRP is expected.
“The decline in palm oil prices is primarily on account of higher inventories in the major palm oil producing nations, Indonesia and Malaysia.”, the report said. Also, the trade war between the US and China resulted into Soyabean oil price crash as China imposed 25% import duty levied upon the USA imports.

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